I must sound like a broken record whenever I write about an Alfred Hitchcock movie and say it’s one of his best. “Notorious” took me two viewings to realize its greatness, and now I see it as a sharp-nosed film that combines romance and espionage on a razor thin blade. This isn’t like “To Catch a Thief,” where the only draw is the romance between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly and it happens to have a good suspense story and great cinematography worked in.
No, “Notorious” uses its romance as the driving force behind the spy thriller. Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is enlisted by the American government to infiltrate the home of the German smuggler Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains). However, Alicia is in love with her American contact, known only as Devlin (Cary Grant). Because Alexander suspects their infatuation, Alexander forces her to prove her loyalty to him through marriage. Because all three characters are emotionally involved and complex, we care little about the ramifications of Alexander’s misdeeds but how the events of the plot will affect their tortured love triangle.
It’s a romantic and yet gripping and even surreal film. “Notorious” is Hitchcock testing his limits as a story teller, a director capable of cinematic bravado and an artist evolving a new approach to suspense. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Notorious (1946)”